


Tear Stained

by Merixcil



Series: Whumptober 2019 [14]
Category: Saga (Comics)
Genre: Difficult Parenting, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hiding, child encountering sexual media
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:21:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25668856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merixcil/pseuds/Merixcil
Summary: Hazel tries to piece together the mysteries of grief
Relationships: Alana & Hazel (Saga)
Series: Whumptober 2019 [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1838356
Kudos: 2





	Tear Stained

The pages of the book crackle under the strain from the spine. It’s been well loved, that’s for sure. Mum talks about it like this bundle of words and feelings might be the most important thing in the universe. 

Important enough to keep with them, pushed to the bottom of the bag Mum carries wherever they go, like if it can be pressed down deep enough, it won’t matter any more. 

Hazel blinks, watching the words come into focus. Something about breasts and licking and sucking things. Apparently this book is too grown up for her, but what do grown ups know? Hazel knows all sorts of things she’s not supposed to, and it’s not like any of that’s ever killed her. There are things that really have tried to kill her, with extreme prejudice, and she’s fine. 

They are stranded on some backwater moon and their list of friends is growing shorter by the day. Mum is getting difficult, she’s angry and she’s sad and she thinks that Hazel’s angry and sad must be so different from hers as to be irreconcilable. Some nights Hazel wants to go and sit up on the tin shack roof and scream, just to remind herself that she can, but part of the horror of growing up is learning to take responsibility for yourself and, perhaps more importantly, the people around you. 

Screaming is disturbing the peace here, and that sort of thing comes with consequences. It’s the worst place in the universe for her to be holed up with her mother. 

The book twitches and Hazel loses her grip. The pages fall around her fingers, till they come to the place where they have been most loved, and most hated. Hazel tries to sound out the words, but her education has been lacking for the past year and she’s forgotten so much of what little she was ever allowed to learn. It says something about the sunset, and the breaking of chains, and beyond that she couldn’t say. 

The page has bubbled and wrinkled with water damage, it feels funny to run her finger across it. Like it’s been pulled from the bath. 

Hazel has dropped books in the bath before. Usually when she does it, she has to get rid of the book. Not Mum though, but she’s not very good at letting things go. You don’t drag books you’ve read a hundred times before across the universe if you are, apparently. That’s what everyone else says. 

The front door swings closed and Mum barks something about how dinner’s going to be late before bursting through to the bedroom at the back, where Hazel is sitting, still holding the book. 

“How are-hey!” Mum frowns, then gets angry, and Hazel knew it would be like this. “What are you doing with that? Give it here.”

Hazel stands up too fast and the book falls to the floor. And why should she have to feel bad about any of this? It’s not like Mum never goes through her stuff, but when she tries to speak the wrong sound comes out. 

Mum hesitates then, looking at her like this is the first time, and they are perfect strangers meeting under strange skies. Hazel breathes out and it feels like her lungs are collapsing, so she hides her head in her hands and nearly treads right on the book. 

“Careful!” Mum moves her out of the way, voice brusque but she’s only pretending to be angry. The book is saved and put away and then they are two, in a hostile district of a strange place. 

Perhaps it was always just the two of them. Hazel had to come from mum’s belly, after all. Maybe she was made there by accident, and all the rest of their family and company has been a wonderful illusion that they built for themselves. 

“Hey.” A hand comes to rest on the back of Hazel’s head, and another on her arm. “Hey, Hazel-”

“I’m sorry!” Hazel sobs. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

She doesn’t even know what she didn’t mean to do, just that she would take it all back if she could make this better. The war was her fault, it’s all her fault, she has her wings but she will never really be allowed to fly. 

She’s almost as tall as mum now, another couple of years and Hazel has every intention of overtaking her. But for now she is still small, still a child in every sense of the word. 

“It’s ok.” Mum tells her, whispering it to the crown of Hazel’s head like a secret. “Shh. It’s ok, I’ve got you.”

“Was that his favourite?” Hazel asks, and though it comes out sounding more like a hiccup than a group of real words, Mum understands her. 

“No. That one wasn’t his favourite. It’s mine.”

What’s worse than wanting to scream into the night and not being able to? As far as Hazel is concerned, nothing and everything. But maybe one day she’ll have her own tear stained books, and her own planets she can never return to, and her own magic. She hopes, when the time comes, she will see her father’s face imprinted on the stars, like mum does with the story of a setting sun. 

**Author's Note:**

> This work was originally posted as part of a multi chaptered 'whumptober' fic that I'm trying to split up. If you think you've read it before, you probably have


End file.
